Many types of pollination: take the quiz

We beekeepers are enthralled with bee pollinators, but the natural world is brimming with different types of pollination. Many animals pollinate flowers, but the major pollinator is the wind. Even flowing water can be a pollinator.

In this quiz, I list twelve types of pollination. Although many overlap—such as insect pollinators and bee pollinators—some are distinct groups. See if you can match the word with the pollinators. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

In order to see the answers at the end of the quiz, please respond to all the questions.

1. Anemophily is pollination by ______.

2. Cantharophily is pollination by ______.

3. Chiropterophily is pollination by ______.

4. Entomophily is pollination by ______.

5. Hydrophily is pollination by ______.

6. Malacophily is pollination by ______.

7. Melittophily is pollination by ______.

8. Myophily is pollination by ______.

9. Ornithophily is pollination by ______.

10. Phalaenophily is pollination by ______.

11. Psychophily is pollination by ______.

12. Zoophily is pollination by ______.

Of all the types of pollination, wind is the most common. Pixabay photo.

Comments

Hah! Even cheating I missed one.
I really only knew half. And by ‘knew’ I mean had a good guess based on roots.
So why isn’t ‘psychophily’ pollination by crazy people? Seems like something we might do.

Oi oi oi Rusty, very very good quiz, this made me work, I had to google a few of them as well and even got deeper into the plant round leaf bindweed that is pollinated by snails. I hope some of this new knowledge sticks in my brain…. Thank you

Way to stretch and grow my brain neurons – yay!! I got 100%, but must confess I only knew 3.5. I counted one as a half as I suspected a connection between a root and something I knew but had to do Internet search to confirm. Thank you, Rusty!

Following your instructions on asking questions through posts rather than your “contact me” page so this comment/question is totally unrelated to your most recent article so here goes.

I follow several bee-related social media sites and have noted several reports of colonies “absconding” but the beekeeper finds the queen and a few workers remaining in the hive. In most of the incidents I’ve seen they are apparently healthy hives that have been properly monitored and treated for mites so mite load doesn’t seem to be the issue. Any thoughts on why this would occur or what would provoke it to happen?

Suicide is a human thing, but absconding by a bee colony just before winter would be suicide. It very rarely happens. You hit the reason in your question when you said, “apparently” healthy. If a colony was recently treated for mites it may appear healthy, but if the viruses that kill bees are already spread throughout the colony, killing the mites will not help. Indeed, as the viruses have gotten more and more lethal, it doesn’t take a high infestation rate to bring down a colony.

In any case, it’s not absconding if the queen is left behind. Absconding means the entire colony left. The entire colony did not leave if the queen wasn’t with them, so it doesn’t even meet the definition of absconding.

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Bees are more than a hobby;
they are a life study,
in many respects a mirror
of our own society.

—William Longgood

Why Honey Bee is Two Words

Regardless of dictionaries, we have in entomology a rule for insect common names that can be followed. It says: If the insect is what the name implies, write the two words separately; otherwise run them together. Thus we have such names as house fly, blow fly, and robber fly contrasted with dragonfly, caddicefly, and butterfly, because the latter are not flies, just as an aphislion is not a lion and a silverfish is not a fish. The honey bee is an insect and is preeminently a bee; “honeybee” is equivalent to “Johnsmith.”

—From Anatomy of the Honey Bee by Robert E. Snodgrass

State Insects

The non-native European Honey Bee is the state insect of:

Arkansas

Georgia

Kansas

Louisiana

Maine

Mississippi

Missouri

Nebraska

New Jersey

North Carolina

Oklahoma

South Dakota

Tennessee

Utah

Vermont

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Not one native bee is a state insect. The closest relative of a North American native bee to make the list is the Tarantula Hawk Wasp, the state insect of New Mexico.

Update! Minnesota now has a state bee as well as a state insect. Bombus affinis, the Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee, has been so honored. Good work, Minnesota!

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Honey Bee Suite is dedicated to honey bees, beekeeping, wild bees, other pollinators, and pollination ecology. It is designed to be informative and fun, but also to remind readers that pollinators throughout the world are endangered. Although they may seem small and insignificant, pollinators are vital to anyone who eats.